Huda F Are You?: A Graphic Novel - Hardcover

Fahmy, Huda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593324307 ISBN 13: 9780593324301

Publisher: Dial Books, 2021

Synopsis

From the creator of Yes, I'm Hot In This, this cheeky, hilarious, and honest graphic novel asks the question everyone has to figure out for themselves: Who are you?

A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century

Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl.

Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can't rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn't a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She's not the one who knows everything about her religion or the one all the guys like. She's miscellaneous, which makes her feel like no one at all. Until she realizes that it'll take finding out who she isn't to figure out who she is.

About this title

About the Author

Huda Fahmy grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, and has loved comics since she was a kid. She attended the University of Michigan where she majored in English. She taught English to middle and high schoolers for eight years before she started writing about her experiences as a visibly Muslim woman in America and was encouraged by her older sister to turn these stories into comics. Huda, her husband Gehad, and their son reside in Houston, Texas.

Reviews

Gr 7 Up—Fahmy's (Yes, I'm Hot in This) semiautobiographical comic tackles growing up and carving out identity. The author, a Muslim and Egyptian American, describes how as a teen she transferred to a new high school in Dearborn, MI, where she went from being the only student who wore a headscarf to just another hijabi. Realizing that now she blends right in, Huda suddenly feels as though she has no personality (and no friends for that matter), so she decides to find herself and try out the various hijabi cliques at her school: the athletes, the gamers, and the fashionable "hijabonistas." While figuring herself out, Huda also deals with fitting in with her Muslim community; she also encounters an Islamophobic teacher who gives bad grades to all of the Muslim students in her class. Although some of Huda's experiences are specific to a Muslim teen, her attempts to adjust her personality and interests to fit in are universal experiences that all readers can relate to. Huda uses spare, almost stick figure—like, cartoons to illustrate her story, which is told with easy-to-follow panels. Though her artwork is simple, it brims with emotion, enhancing the storytelling of this warm, reassuring tale. VERDICT Centering on a marginalized character attempting to find herself, this is a tale that will resonate with young people seeking to carve out their own identities.—Shazia Naderi, Bethpage P.L., NY

Edition details

• Publisher: Dial Books
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593324307
• ISBN 13: 9780593324301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Fahmy Huda
• Number of pages: 192